The War Crimes Were the Purpose

I am not surprised that the Trump administration's program of targeted assassination in the Caribbean and the South Spear have not slowed drug shipments to the United States.

This is not a surprise.  The goal of this program was never to interdict drug shipments.  It's goal was to murder innocent fisherman for in order to generate the illusion of toughness.

The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former U.S. and foreign officials.

It's all posturing and politics and corrupt murder. 

Should Be Permanent

Professionally obnoxious Evangelelist Whitney Lynn has an signature bit of theological masturbation, she stands up and preaches onboard airline flights, which prevents people from walking away.

Well, Alaska Airlines just booted her from a flight, and her self-involved butt-hurt is a site to see.

Florida evangelist Whitney Lynn uses most of her flights as an opportunity to share her faith, a trend that was featured in a recent Washington Post article.

On Thursday, she said, her sermon got her kicked off a San Diego-bound jet before it even took off from Orlando International Airport. She documented the removal in a series of videos she posted on social media, one of which had racked up 3 million views on Instagram by Friday afternoon.

………

In another video, an airline employee can be seen telling Lynn to gather her things and follow him off the plane because the “crews don’t feel safe with you.”

………

In an emailed statement responding to questions about Lynn’s videos, Alaska Airlines said that the flight crew “became increasingly concerned” about a passenger’s behavior.

“The passenger was asked to deplane the aircraft for safety reasons,” the airline said in a statement. “For the foreseeable future, the guest will not be permitted to travel on our flights.”

Lynn, who said she had planned to attend a follower’s funeral in California, said she was able to rebook her flight but later got an email from the airline saying she was not allowed to travel on Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines or Horizon Air while reports about her recent travels were under investigation. She received a flight credit but said there is no way for her to use it now.

Nice to see someone who hypocritically uses religion as an excuse to express rudeness and passive aggression get what is coming to them.

You mess with the bull, you get the horns. 

Headline of the Day

Tesla Cybertruck Risks Becoming the Ford Edsel of the EV Era

—Bloomberg on the piss poor sales numbers for Musk's folly.

Elon's Swasticar is not selling well

Ford Motor Co. introduced a car almost 70 years ago widely viewed as the greatest automotive flop of all time. Tesla Inc.’s Cybertruck may well be on its way to claiming that title.

Ford’s Edsel, unveiled in 1957, was pitched as an entirely new kind of car, with an oval-shaped front grille likened to a horse collar. The company predicted it would sell 200,000 units in the model’s first year on the market. Ford ended up selling less than one-third of that target, and the Edsel’s design became the butt of jokes.

Tesla started delivering its unusually angular Cybertruck in 2023. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk called it the company’s best product ever and estimated the carmaker might build more than 250,000 annually, depending on demand. Tesla sold less than one-sixth of that number in its first year, and the truck’s blocky looks became a punchline.

Edsel sales dropped each year the model was on the market, and Ford discontinued the car in 1959. Cybertruck sales are off to an even worse start. Only 7,133 have been registered in the US this year through May, according to S&P Global Mobility data provided to Bloomberg News. That count is buoyed by Musk’s other companies, with SpaceX building out a fleet of Cybertrucks.

 Even with the self-dealing and fraud, the tiny penis truck is not selling well.

Fraudy McFraud Face is a Fraud

And by, "Fraudy McFraud Face," I mean Flock Group Inc.

It turns out that the eponymous private surveillance firm provides little evidence that it reduces crime.

Gee, It's all a corrupt fraud?  Who do they think that they are, the Trump Org?

Since the launch of Flock Safety in 2017, the ACLU estimates the company installed some 100,000 automatic license plate readers throughout the United States. The dragnet comes with plenty of downsides to privacy and civil liberties: it’s ripe for abuse by crooked cops, powered by sweatshop labor, and nearly impossible to escape once it designates you a target.

But police officials insist it’s worth the trade off — because at it least it helps them catch the bad guys, right? Unfortunately, the reality isn’t quite that peachy.

Atlanta, Georgia has experienced far and away the largest influx of ALRPs in the country, with over 5,000 various Flock cameras now blanketing the city. Yet as bombshell data released by the FBI shows, the city’s massive web of surveillance has had virtually zero impact on the Atlanta Police Department’s ability to solve crime, with some clearance rates for offenses like homicide even experiencing a decline over the past few years as the cameras have proliferated.

First reported by the Atlanta Community Press Collective, the FBI data is a damning refutation of Flock’s primary claim: that ALPRs are necessary to help officers keep the public safe.

According to the ACPC, the rates at which the APD resolves crimes like homicide, robbery, miscellaneous larceny, and shoplifting have actually decreased between 2021 and 2025, when the city’s ALPR build-out hit its full stride.

For homicide, the numbers are especially embarrassing, with the FBI reporting case closures at just 48 percent in 2025, down from 53.4 percent in 2021. Meanwhile, rape remained flat year over year, holding steady at a pitiful 37.7 percent closure rate from 2021 to 2025, and dipping down to just 21.2 percent at its lowest point in that four-year span.

(emphasis original)

This might explain why Flock shrouds its marketing in secrecy and non-disclosure agreements.

It also explains why so many public officials involved in approving the camera deals end up getting payoff of various sorts from the company. 

Common Sense in the UK

Given the large number of applications for power connections for data centers that are either never built or delayed, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) is proposing a substantial fee for grid connection requests from data centers.

Given that these requests result in significant costs which are largely borne by the rate-payers, this makes a lot of sense.

Ofgem is seeking feedback on proposals to levy a fee on datacenter development projects at the time they apply for a grid connection.

The move aims to discourage companies from seeking approval for speculative applications that clog up the pipeline and cause connection delays, without ever resulting in finished datacenters.

The UK regulator for electricity and gas says connection applications for electrical supply have surged from 41 gigawatts (GW) to 125 GW in under a year, with datacenters accounting for at least 80 GW of the new demand.

………

Ofgem is proposing a Datacenter Commitment Fee paid by the developers of large server farm projects when accepting a grid connection offer. The fee would be refunded once the facility is drawing power, or forfeited if the project exits the queue early instead.

That refund bit I do not approve of.  Data center power provisioning levies large external costs on the grid, and the AI grifters should be made to pay for that.

To Know It Is to Hate It

In profoundly unsurprising news, a poll is showing that as people learn more about LLM artificial intelligence, the more they hate it.

This is not a surprise.  Except for some very limited edge cases (The Odysseus Google Maps video), there is little real benefit shown, and little benefit promised, by the technology.

For a time, it appeared as if AI would find broad acceptance among the American masses.

The peanut gallery on social media happily embraced early image generation models as researchers appeared to make significant breakthroughs with the aid of their newfound tools. On paper, surveys found public attitudes toward the tech continued to improve into 2025 — before sharply reversing.

In 2026, America’s honeymoon phase with AI seems to be quickly wearing off. According to a joint poll conducted by Bentley University and Gallup, the percentage of US adults who think AI does “more harm than good” is rising, from 31 percent in 2025 to 39 percent this year, while a piddling 9 percent still think the tech does “more good than harm.”

As outlooks sour, the Bentley-Gallup poll found that Americans’ familiarity with AI continues to grow. In 2026, 70 percent of those polled said they’re “somewhat or extremely knowledgeable” about AI, up 6 percent compared to 2024. The implication probably gives OpenAI Sam Altman a migraine: the more people learn about AI, the less they seem to want it in their lives.

The American public is smarter than most of our oligarchs think. 

It just takes them a while to examine complex issues like this, because they have bills to pay and lives to live. 

Well, It's a Start

Capital One has announced that it has closed Trump Organization accounts due to patterns showing money laundering.

What?  You mean that a mobbed up real estate developer from New York City might be laundering money?

Pshaw! 

Capital One Financial hit back on Friday against a lawsuit over its ⁠decision to close the Trump ⁠Organization’s bank accounts ​years ago, stating that it did so after a review by anti-money-laundering experts.

The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money-laundering concerns to Donald Trump’s family business. Capital One is seeking to dismiss the case by casting doubt on claims of illegally debanking – or denying services on religious or political grounds – the Trump Organization.

………

Capital One has never accused the Trump Organization of money laundering. ​But Friday’s filing argues that “documents and Plaintiffs’ own ‌allegations make clear that Capital One closed ‌Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (‘AML’) reasons.

“The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by ‌Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance.”

Capital One gave notice of its plans to close more than 300 Trump-affiliated bank accounts in March 2021.

300 accounts?!?!!?  

Nope, no money laundering there.

………

“The transaction patterns identified by Capital One are among the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance,” the filing said.

Gee, ya think?